ACPAtmospheric Chemistry and PhysicsACPAtmos. Chem. Phys.1680-7324Copernicus GmbHGöttingen, Germany10.5194/acp-12-845-2012Technical Note: High-resolution mineralogical database of dust-productive soils for atmospheric dust modelingNickovicS.1VukovicA.23VujadinovicM.23DjurdjevicV.34PejanovicG.31World Meteorological Organization, Geneva, Switzerland2Faculty of Agriculture, University of Belgrade, Serbia3South East European Virtual Climate Change Center, Belgrade, Serbia4Institute of Meteorology, University of Belgrade, Serbia18012012122845855This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This article is available from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/845/2012/acp-12-845-2012.htmlThe full text article is available as a PDF file from http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/12/845/2012/acp-12-845-2012.pdf

Dust storms and associated mineral aerosol transport are driven primarily by
meso- and synoptic-scale atmospheric processes. It is therefore essential
that the dust aerosol process and background atmospheric conditions that
drive dust emissions and atmospheric transport are represented with
sufficiently well-resolved spatial and temporal features. The effects of
airborne dust interactions with the environment determine the mineral
composition of dust particles. The fractions of various minerals in aerosol
are determined by the mineral composition of arid soils; therefore, a
high-resolution specification of the mineral and physical properties of dust
sources is needed.
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Several current dust atmospheric models simulate and predict the evolution of
dust concentrations; however, in most cases, these models do not consider the
fractions of minerals in the dust. The accumulated knowledge about the
impacts of the mineral composition in dust on weather and climate processes
emphasizes the importance of including minerals in modeling systems.
Accordingly, in this study, we developed a global dataset consisting of the
mineral composition of the current potentially dust-producing soils. In our
study, we (a) mapped mineral data to a high-resolution 30 s grid, (b)
included several mineral-carrying soil types in dust-productive regions that
were not considered in previous studies, and (c) included phosphorus.